The Wind Changed Direction
by Harpokrates
Summary: Imprisoned by Decepticons, Red Alert plots.


Red Alert rested her head against the cool metal of the wall and offlined her optics. Her elbows were propped on her knees, leaving her cuffed wrists dangling between her knees.

"Hey, Red," Hot Shot whispered from the cell across the hall. "Is Rodimus Minor gonna be okay?"

Red Alert didn't look at him. "I don't know. Stop moving."

"But, Red," Hot Shot crawled forwards, the knee of his mangled leg grinding against the ground, "he's the Minor."

Red Alert didn't respond. Rodimus certainly was the Minor. He was also certainly about to die. You didn't recover from Decepticon biowarfare and you definitely didn't recover from Oil Slick's biowarfare. Team Charr had stuffed him in a containment chamber—cosmic rust was highly infectious, even when it wasn't airborne—and Red Alert hadn't seen him since they were initially captured.

She hadn't seen Brawn either, but Ironhide informed her that he was being held under induced stasis in one of the high security cells in the lower levels of the base. He'd overheard it during the only time any of them had been selected for integration. Red Alert had been prepared to lose her other hand, but these Deceptions were less prone to dismemberment than they had been in the past. The worst that had happened was a few absently aimed kicks. After Team Athenia had told them all they were able to tell them (unit, model number, designation), they had been left alone.

That bothered Red Alert. Either these Decepticons simply didn't care, which was so absurd it was laughable, or they already knew what hey wanted to know, and that meant they had either taken down another Space Bridge outpost and no one knew about it, or there was a leak in high command.

Red Alert pursed her mouth. She didn't like to wish 'bots were dead, but a murdered team was infinitely better than a double agent.

"Autobot."

Red Alert didn't respond. The gruff voice belonged to Cyclonus, and it was her duty as an Autobot POW to cause as much trouble as possible for her captors, even if it was just a few seconds of delay and mild annoyance.

Cyclonus smacked the laser bars with his fist, causing the plasma to scatter at Red Alert's feet. She bit back a gasp and pulled her legs in closer, then finally onlined her optics.

Cyclonus loomed over her through the bars, his dark armor barely lit by the sputtering pink lasers.

"What?" She said finally, looking up at him.

"Come with me." He stepped back and the laser bars sputtered away. Red Alert stood up as slowly as she could manage without ticking Cyclonus' ire and limped out into the hall. She considered, briefly, making a break for it, but abandoned the thought as soon as it popped into her processor. She was the first to admit that she wasn't a very skilled warrior. Even during the Great War she had kept out of active combat zones until the Autobots had been hurting for field medics so badly they enforced a draft of all non-indispensable medical personnel. And besides her own lack of skill, _Cyclonus_ had come to retrieve her.

 _Perhaps_ , if it had been Grindor or Spittor, or even Oil Slick, she could have had a chance. Grindor couldn't keep up with her if she made it to the smaller corridors in the case, she knew what to expect from Spittor now, and Oil Slick was a legitimately poor combatant, despite his skill with disease, but Cyclonus…

Even during the most desperate parts of the Great War, a battalion would retreat if Cyclonus was confirmed to be on-site. High Command considered staying to fight him a needless waste of resources—that being their term for _Autobot lives_ —and the same High Command had poured millions of credits into the ultimately futile Headmasters program.

Red Alert stepped out into the hall, shoulders hunched and arms aching from the cuffs.

"Walk." Cyclonus pointed down the hall.

"Hey!" Hot Spot shouted, leaning forwards. "Where are you taking her?"

Cyclonus gave him a disdainful, half-hearted glance, before shifting his eyes back to Red Alert. He jerked his head. Red Alert frowned, and began walking down the hall.

"Red!" Hot Spot scrambled to his feet and limped along the length of his cell, trying to keep pace with them. "Red, don't tell them anything!"

Red Alert risked a glance back at him. He looked desperate and terrified, like the child he was, in the middle of a war that ended long ago.

"Red…" He reached the end of his cell and nearly touched the laser bars, before jerking his hands away. Good. He was still rational enough to keep his cool, at least when it came to offlining himself.

She twisted back to look at him. "I'll be fine, Hot Spot. Keep your head on your shoulders."

Cyclonus shoved her along, causing her to stagger over her feet. Red Alert pulled her gaze away from Hot Spot to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe Ironhide had the right idea, with his unforgiving exercise regime to keep him busy. If the opportunity to escape ever came around, he would be the only one who could make it more than a hundred meters without tripping.

They walked in silence, taking the twisting route up to the control room for the space bridge. The Decepticons had made it their temporary headquarters, presumably so they could open the gates whenever the call for invasion finally came.

"Go." Cyclonus prodded her into the laser lift to the control tower. Red Alert scowled, but stepped forwards nonetheless. The hum of old plasma resounded in the tiny space, and they slowly began gliding upwards.

Any other Decepticon would be trying to psych her out, right about now. After she had lost her hand, Rampage, the Decepticon who had set it, stayed behind after the retreat was called just to taunt her. Braggadocio was one of the many symptoms of being a Decepticon. Cyclonus was made of sterner stuff. It made him more intimidating than his reputation.

The lift doors spiraled open. The control tower was in good shape, despite having been abandoned for centuries and now inhabited by a rowdy gang of Decepticons. The center console played live footage of the cells: Hot Spot was curled in a corner, Ironhide was doing push-ups, and Brawn was slumped with his eyes closed. The radio console looked like it still worked, too. Red Alert tried not to look too closely at it, just in case one of the Decepticons noticed her gaze.

"Autobot," the booming voice of the Decepticons squad leader made her look up, and fear snapped her back straight. Strika.

Red Alert had been dispatched to Charr, after the massacre was over and the High Council needed someone to pick through the bodies. It still haunted her recharge cycles.

Rachet had deleted those memories from his CPU. He had burned out, but she was still serving, wasn't she? Sometimes she wondered if he had made the right decision.

Cyclonus pushed her forwards and she stumbled down to her knees. A massive foot stepped into her frame of vision.

"I recognized you, Autobot." Strika rumbled at her. "The relief at Charr." Cold amusement filled her voice. "You seem to have lost some weight. Ten kilo? How much does an arm weigh?"

Spittor and Blackout looked at each other, uncertain, then burst into unhinged laughter. Strika let them laugh for a good minute, then backhanded Blackout into the wall. It was a testinate to good construction that he didn't end up eating dirt on Asteroid 687-030.

Red Alert kept her vocal circuits silent.

Strika scowled, or at least gave the impression of it. Her face wasn't motile enough for expression.

"Speak, Autobot."

"Team Athenia, model 15342-12b, designation: Red Alert."

Strika snorted and aimed a half hearted kick at Red Alert, sending her sprawling onto her side.

"You are the medic, yes?"

"Team Athenia," Red Alert wheezed. Strika pressed a massive foot onto her chest before she could get the rest out.

"Yes or no, Autobot."

"Yes," Red Alert managed to gasp. Her spark was just below her chest, in her abdomen, but the mechanisms that kept that spark thrumming with plasma were pumping away just under Strika's massive foot.

"Good." Strika removed her foot and nudged her back to her knees. Red Alert struggled to stay upright. "Oil Slick."

The Decepticon limped out of the shadows. He looked mangled, and Red Alert wasn't sure how he managed to stay on his feet. His left arm was missing, and his right was leaking energon in contained spurts. His chest was pocked with laserburst scorches and fist dents.

"Fix him," Strika jerked her chin towards Oil Slick.

"I don't have my equipment." Red Alert lied.

Strika sneered. "Cyclonus. Take her to the infirmary. Make sure she doesn't take anything."

"Understood." Cyclonus hauled her up by her arm and set her back on her feet. Red Alert staggered, but managed to follow him back towards the elevator. Oil Slick limped after him. Standing next to him, Red Alert could hear his systems struggle to supply energon to limb that was leaking it all over the floor.

"Your Minor is feisty," Oil Slick hissed, grinning meanly, when he caught Red Alert staring, "he keeps fighting back, instead of letting me dissect him."

Rodimus was alive?! Red Alert cut the circuits to her facial expressions before her face could give away her surprise. Cyclonus noticed when her face went unnaturally slack, but he didn't comment on it.

"You're a 'bot of science, aren't you?" Oil Slick continued, "Cured GPS, yes? If I recognize you. I'm a fan of your work, you know. Your research into the principles of contagion inspired me to aerosolize cosmic rust."

Red Alert's tank heaved. Her face rerouted without her permission and twisted in revulsion.

Oil Slick's grin spread oozed across his face. "Don't worry, doctor. I'll make sure you're cited properly."

"Oil Slick."

Oil Slick's mouth snapped shut. Cyclonus gestured for Red Alert to walk forward. She limped towards the infirmary, followed by Cyclonus and a cringing Oil Slick. Interesting.

The infirmary doors snapped open in front of her, revealing an abandoned and dilapidated medical bay. It looked ancient, even though Red Alert knew it couldn't have been more than a few centuries old. Dust, that odd organic powder, covered the equipment, and the visible wires looked frayed. Very interesting.

She didn't know much about organics, other than that they were unpleasant at the best of times and disgusting at the worst, but Perceptor's most controversial research, back when he was interested in things beyond Cybertron, back before the War had broken all of them, had been on organics, and his lab had looked like this.

She stepped forwards and fingered a bit of frayed wire.

"Will this suffice?" Cyclonus rumbled.

"Yes," said Red Alert curtly, then patted an operating table. Oil Slick peered at her, suspicious, then heaved his massive Decepticon weight onto the table.

"Were you exposed in any way to the cosmic rust?" Red Alert began, using an old heat sealer to crimp the tubing in Oil Slick's arm shut.

"The airborne form, yes, but I have protective gear permanently installed. I'm clever enough not to let the Minor expose me to the cutaneous version."

If Red Alert had been at Protihex Medical Mechanics, she would have immediately activated a contact exposure procedure. This was Space bridge 687-030, so she didn't. Besides, cosmic rust ran it's course in seconds; if Oil Slick was going to die, he'd be dead. Which begged the question: how was Rodimus Minor still alive?

How could she contact him?

Red Alert repaired Oil Slick's remaining arm without really thinking about it.

"I'm," she began, then paused for a fraction of a second as her processor raced, "I'm going to need to amputate."

"What?!" Oil Slick ripped his arm away from her. "Don't touch me!"

Cyclonus looked forwards, ready to grab her, or possibly throw her through the panel windows and into space.

Red Alert stepped back and held her hand up.

"Not this arm. The other one is damaged beyond repair; I need to remove the remains to prevent further damage."

She didn't, not really—transformers couldn't get infections like organics could, but she was well aware of her reputation as a butcher with a medical license. Rodimus, if he was cognizant, would recognize her handiwork.

Oil Slick looked suspicious, but Cyclonus jerked his chin in a rough nod, and he slinked back onto the medical berth.

Red Alert didn't bother giving him the encouraging smile that she sometimes applied to reticent Autobots, and instead applied the plasma blade and arc welder to his stump. He had taken the initiative to deaden his pain sensors, so he didn't flinch from the sensation, but instead the fact that the ragged remains of his arm were being sawed off and sealed.

"Done," Red Alert grunted, pulling away.

Oil Slick flexed his newly repaired hand. "Excellent. If only you had been a Decepticon."

Red Alert gritted her mouth. Cyclonus pointed towards the door, and she followed him back down to the brig. She stepped into her cell when he deactivated the plasma bars. He looked down at her.

"You would have made a terrible Decepticon." He remarked offhandedly. "You didn't even try to poison him."

Then he turned and left.

"You okay?" Hot Shot scrambled forwards to look at her.

"Fine." She said curtly. It hurt to be short with him, but now that she had confirmation that they were being recorded, talking could reveal something that she didn't want revealed.

She leaned back and shuttered off her eyes. Then, she started plotting.


End file.
